KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA—It had been 17 years since a sitting Canadian prime minister had visited Malaysia and on Saturday Stephen Harper slipped in with barely a ripple.

In a city consumed by a state visit by new Chinese President Xi Jinping, Harper simply couldn’t compete and chose to spend a low-key day touring a mosque and a maritime airbase and speaking to Canadian business leaders.

That’s not to say Canadians aren’t competing in Southeast Asia. Marc Parent, the chief executive officer of Montreal-based CAE Inc., says Canada punches “way above our weight” in the aerospace sector, and CAE’s flight simulators and pilot training are part of that success.

A growing Southeast Asian middle class is a key driver, said Parent, and having a stream of top Canadian officials — from ministers to the Governor General and now the prime minister — visit in recent years has helped as well.

He was part of the round table group that met Harper on Saturday. Talisman Energy, Bombardier Rail, Teknion Furniture and several major Canadian financial institutions are already cashing in on regional growth.

“This is very much a growing economic relationship with a good presence of Canadian businesses and Malaysian businesses in each other’s country,” Harper said for the cameras during a brief photo-op before the closed-door business discussion.

Canadian business presence in Malaysia may be growing, but the Chinese regional colossus puts Canada-Malaysian two-way trade in sharp perspective. Canada-Malaysia commercial trade tops out at about $3 billion annually, while China is doing almost $100 billion dollars a year in trade with Malaysia.

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